You are cooking apprentices in the mountainhome, all aspiring to be given the opportunity to become the next legendary chef. As such, grandmaster Ramses Gorgo is holding a competition to find the best chefs in the realm to enter his esteemed chef's guild that is endowed with all the best resources so that the best chefs can cook the best meals for the best and most noble dwarves in the multiverse.
(OOC: I want an arms race/design game that's both accessible and that can be approached at professional levels. Few mortals can actually describe military engineering properly... but anyone can cook! or at least tinker about in a kitchen. The literature is also far more accessible for anyone who needs to do research into how to make a working dish.)
Game Phases:Design Cooking Phase:Come up with recipes for each dish to be presented in the dining phase. A recipe goes into detail on at least 3 components: A core concept, the ingredients used, and the processes used for cooking.
Example: Mushroom and cheese Omelette
Concept: A classic dish of filled beaten eggs oozing with cheesy goodness and fresh juicy mushrooms.
Ingredients:
Brown Mushrooms
Cheese
Eggs
Process:
Beat eggs in a bowl
Pre-cook the mushrooms in a pan until they start to sizzle. Then remove into a bowl.
Pour the egg mixture into the pan.
Gently move cooked portions from edges toward the center with inverted turner so that uncooked eggs can reach the hot pan surface. Continue cooking, tilting pan and gently moving cooked portions as needed.
When top surface of eggs is thickened and no visible liquid egg remains, place the mushroom and cheese filling on one side of the omelet. Fold the omelette in half. With a quick flip of the wrist, turn pan and slide the omelette onto plate. Serve immediately.
Dinner service1. Anyone in the audience can rate the dishes. The total ratings will be tallied and averaged.
2. Each item is rated on a scale of 1 to 5 according to these categories:
Description - How well your food looks on text
Process - How well the cooking methods used on your food looks on text
Dwarfiness (originality) - Meta note: Dwarf nobles favor bizarre and rich foods. The more creative your ingredients and dishes are, the better. But it all needs to come together to make a good and flavorful dish.
Appeal - An arbitrary value where judges decide on what they think about the overall taste and balance.
The total score for each dish is 20.
If multiple courses are served, the average score is taken with the following modifiers to the total score:
+2 for every dish With a score above 17
+1 for every dish scoring above 15
-1 for every dish scoring below 10
Naturally, the highest scoring player wins the round and gains 1 victory point. We will go as many rounds as we feel like it.
Acquisition and Revision Phase:After each dinner, the contestants will be allowed to run around the mountainhome to look for new ingredients or visit specialists to improve on ingredients you already have.
You get one acquisition and one refinement each round. Randomness in outcome will probably be standard D6 RTD or GM fiat. You can also trade ingredients among contestants without restriction.
An example of an ingredient acquisition will be something like: Go to the butcher's to acquire kitten intestines.
An example of a revision or refinement of an ingredient will be something like: Arrange for a special portion of kittens set aside for your use to be force-fed beer so that their livers can be harvested with extra grease and fatty acids. The ingredient you improve on will be just the liver. Not a whole drunken kitten.
Note that for all meats you will never just acquire cat meat or pig meat or cow meat. You should specify the cut you want to the butcher. Like Kitten's prime rib. The soft forebrain of a human prisoner. The brisket of a cow. If you fail to specify sufficiently we'll default to the junk that goes into mince.
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Game rounds and game start:Ingredient counts:
Each ingredient can only be used once. If you want to use an ingredient for more than one dish, you must buy it twice. If you intend to use a refined ingredient more than once, you must buy it multiple times for each use. All herbs and spices count as ingredients. EDIT: New rule - Salt and pepper are free.
Round one
In the first round each contestant picks 3 ingredients. These are permanent choices so choose your starting loadout carefully.
You are cooking a relatively simple 3 ingredient dish for the assistant to the assistant to the assistant royal foodtaster's chambermaid. It is suggested that each contestant prepares a main course, but do what you like.
After each contestant has their dish we move on to judgement in the dinner service phase. There the audience will give their votes to give scores to each contestant according to the judging categories.
After that we go to the revision phase where each contestant can pick one new ingredient and one revision of an ingredient.
Subsequent rounds:
Every round sees the maximum ingredient count increased by 1. There are no restrictions on the number of courses served by each chef after round 1. Only round 1 is a 1 course meal.
Sample SignupName: Jaimee Oliver
Description: The less angry archrival of Ramses Gorgo
Ingredients:
Salmon Fillet taken from the belly
Olive Oil
Rosemary
Quick reference:
https://www.businessinsider.com/beef-cuts-chart-2014-10/?IR=T&r=SGhttp://chefpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fish_Cutshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donenesshttps://chefpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Bar_and_Beverage_Terminologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cocktails